Considering the film’s subject matter, it actually contains very little sex – the main bedroom scene cuts from a kiss to the morning after. “The core fans were always saying: ‘I’ve seen the drawings, those are my sex, now I want to see the story of the man I idolise,’” says [director Dome] Karukoski. “So the amount of gay sex will come very much from the dramatic need. Where is the line where it becomes provocation? [When] it overrides the emotional balance of the story.”

Instead, much of the film focuses on the struggles Laaksonen endured as a gay man in conservative Finland, from facing jail as a young man after a pick-up went awry, to facing constant pressure from his younger sister never to express his true identity, since she believed it would bring shame on the family. “Even when I told her about him being accepted into the permanent collection at MoMA, her response was: ‘Well, what were they thinking?’” says Dehner, still hurt by the memory. The film, he says, is “touching – how terrible society has been to us and how conditional the love is from family members”.

Canny Borges never names the Web, of course: As “The Garden of Forking Paths” points out, in a riddle whose answer is chess, the only word that cannot be used is “chess.” But the meaning of his parables is specific and undeniable. The Aleph in the fiction of the same title, the portal through which one can see every point in the universe, is Netscape Navigator in all but name. The Zahir, an object that changes its form over time but monopolizes its owner’s attention forever, is none other than Microsoft Internet Explorer, as anyone who’s tried to unstick it from a computer’s operating system only to click fatally on an innocuous icon will tell you. (Consider, in fact, the alphabetical remove of Borges’ names for the browsers, his subtle jest on the Alpha and Omega of his new world.)

Sign up for the FRAME festival and become a part of an emerging festival, full of comics, zines and illustrations! We welcome all small publishers, authors and illustrators. OPEN CALL is until 31.8. 2017. Each exhibitor can choose from two options for his presentation – a small table 110 x 55 cm or a large table 220 x 55 cm. The jury of Centrala and No Ordinary Heroes will then select approximately 50 exhibitors who will be contacted with detailed information on arrival and installation no later than September 10, 2017.

Another giveaway is the colour of people’s ears. “If the Sun is behind me, my ears will look red from the front because you’ll see the blood,” he says. “If the light is coming from the front, you won’t see the red in the ear.”

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A Cosmic Journey – 8-15-2017 – by Cameron Arthur

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Suzy and Cecil – 8-15-2017 – by Sally Ingraham

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Joanie and Jordie – 8-15-2017 – by Caleb Orecchio

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